SQUAN GOES TO STATE FINAL: Outlasts St. Rose to Advance in Tournament of Champions

TOMS RIVER — Sophomore Katelynn Flaherty and freshman Marina Mabrey combined for 41 points to lead Manasquan past St. Rose and set up a Tuesday game with Gill St. Bernard for the state championship.

The Tournament of Champions final will be Tuesday, March 20th at 8 p.m. at the Meadowlands IZOD Center in East Rutherford.

With a spot in the NJSIAA final on the line and playing against a that already beat her team on a big stage, Warriors senior Michaela Mabrey did the opposite of what most other NCAA Division I recruits would do at the high school level.

She played to get her teammates shots.

For the second time this season, St. Rose took away Mabrey's scoring, but Flaherty and Marina Mabrey — Michaela's younger sister — combined for 41 points to lead the Warriors past the Purple Roses, 56-50, Thursday at Pine Belt Arena in Toms River.

"In the second half, my focus was on setting screens to get Katelynn open," said Michaela Mabrey, who finished with nine points, six rebounds and four assists. "I couldn't care less if I score 25 points. When Katelynn is feeling it like she was, I'm either going to find her or give the ball to Marina and try to set some screens to get her open. You have a shooter like her, you give her the ball."

Flaherty scored 16 of her game-high 22 points in the second half, and Marina Mabrey poured in 19 points to go with eight rebounds as Manasquan built a 13-point lead in the third quarter and held off a late third-quarter run from St. Rose that turned a 32-19 deficit into a 37-37 tie heading into the final quarter.

"St. Rose put Kasey Chambers on Michaela and she's their best defender, so they were trying to take her away," Flaherty said. "I know she didn't score that many points, but she would penetrate and draw two or three defenders and then find someone open. If they were going to show her that kind of attention, we knew the rest of us had to step up and hit shots."

St. Rose senior forward Samantha Clark hit a 23-foot three-pointer as time expired in the third quarter to tie the game at 37, giving St. Rose seven unanswered points in the final 1:10 of the quarter.

Clark, who will play at Fordham University next season, scored 18 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked three shots, but Manasquan was content with Clark's performance considering her 28-point outburst in a on Feb. 24.

Junior Amanda Hagaman battled Clark and held her to 5-for-11 shooting and also scored six fourth-quarter points to help the Warriors during their fourth-quarter run.

"I think she did pretty well," Flaherty said of Hagaman's job on Clark. "She tired her out and she missed some lay-ups. She did a good job of fronting her and our back people did a good job on the weak-side."

After Clark's long three tied the game, Manasquan responded by going to Hagaman for a lay-up to open the quarter, followed by Flaherty and Marina Mabrey combining for Manasquan's next 10 points to stake the Warriors to a 49-43 lead with 5:14 left.

"We knew that was lucky and we knew they were getting tired," Marina Mabrey said. "We just kept pushing and and defending, and we knew from the beginning that we had this game. We just had to regroup and play our game."

Hagaman scored twice in the paint for Manasquan's last two field goals and the defense did the rest to push the Warriors into Tuesday's T of C final against Gill St. Bernard, which came from 23 down to beat Malcolm X Shabazz 60-56 Thursday.

Manasquan took a 22-17 halftime lead with a 12-2 run to end the second quarter and rode Flaherty's hot shooting to a 32-19 lead early in the third quarter.

St. Rose, however, refused to go away, ripping off an 18-5 run to close the third, capped by Clark's game-tying three. Clark led the charge with seven points during the run, while Morgan Barry added five.

"We had to remind ourselves to slow it down," Flaherty said. "We were actually confident because we knew when we played at our pace, we took a double-digit lead, and if we got back to that, we could take over the game again."

St. Rose senior guard Diana Malanga added 13 points in her final game for the Purple Roses.

Thursday's win gave Manasquan a 2-1 edge over St. Rose in the season series, with the Roses winning the Shore Conference Tournament championship and the on Feb. 11.

"I'm not going to lie, I think we came in overconfident the last time we played them," Marina Mabrey said. "We didn't really go over stuff to get ready and we just treated them like a regular team and obviously, we got burned with that. This time, we prepared for them like we did with every other team that was just as good as us."

Michaela Mabrey has already been a part of a Tournament of Champions championship team when she was the first player off the bench as a freshman for St. John Vianney in 2009. She will be playing in her second T of C title game on Tuesday while her younger sister also tries to win her first championship as a freshman.

"It's going to be exciting to play for a championship in my first year but I really want this for Michaela," Marina said. "Obviously, she won as a freshman, and I'd like to win too, but it means so much more to do it as a senior, and I really want to send her off with a championship in her senior year."

In two games thus far, Marina Mabrey has already made her mark in the T of C with a 25-point, six-steal game in the on Tuesday to go with the 19-point performance Thursday.

"It means a lot coming from my sister," said Michaela Mabrey, one of only three seniors, along with Melissa Pavia and Gretchen Fay, on the team. "I know her, and I know she wants it for herself too. We could have given up this year, but I know nobody wanted to do that, and I know they wanted to do it for me in my senior year.

"This could be the last year we all play together, me, Marina and Katelynn, and it means a lot to me."

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